


sticks and stones and animal bones

by stayingputwouldbeablunder



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Future Fic, Gen, M/M, Pack Family, Sharing Clothes, Slice of Life, minor spoilers for S3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-23
Updated: 2013-05-23
Packaged: 2017-12-12 15:05:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/812914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stayingputwouldbeablunder/pseuds/stayingputwouldbeablunder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It should be no surprise then that half of what Stiles is wearing doesn’t belong to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sticks and stones and animal bones

**Author's Note:**

> The season 3 trailer reduced me to a pathetic mess. 
> 
> The only spoilers are Kali and her pipe wielding skills. BUT it's just a quick mention.
> 
> Really, this is just an excuse to write clothes sharing and pack family and things that make me feel gushy inside.
> 
> Unbeta'd as usual so any and all mistakes are my own.
> 
> Sidenote: oh my god, Gideon Emery's voice.

Over the span of the last two and a half years, Stiles has lost, ruined, or disposed of approximately sixty five shirts. Fifteen were lost to injury, stubborn blood stains that refused to come out, or clotting material because even though werewolves heal, there is nothing enjoyable about watching your friends, _your pack_ , bleed out in the middle of the woods. Nine were ripped to shreds and beyond repair, even with Stiles’ acute ability to sew things back together: his mother had shown him when he was a child and he’s been responsible for fixing his father’s uniforms for near a decade.

Twelve were casualties of “The Great Purge of 2011”, the summer between sophomore and junior year. The purge was courtesy of one Lydia Martin, whose sudden interest in Stiles’ wardrobe manifested one day in June with a tilt of the head and easy smile. ‘ _If we plan on being friends, I am not going to be seen in public with you while you wear a shirt with a stripper on it_ ’ she had said, plucking shirts from their hangers and tossing them in a pile on his bed. Stiles was still kind of awestruck Lydia wanted to be friends with him, seeing how not two months before he’d suffered the worst heartbreak imaginable because his strawberry blonde princess was irrevocably in love with a douche kanima-turned-werewolf. It had been the beginning of a friendship that now rivaled the one he shared with Scott, built on trust, on being humans in a pack of wolves, on being the spitfire rebels, along with Allison and Danny, that didn’t conform to normal pack hierarchies.

There are three shirts that disappeared into thin air. No really, they actually disappeared. Once day they were in his hamper, the next gone. At least one had been swiped by the Alphas so they could track his scent, another had probably been taken by an omega who mistook him for Scott. Any way, they were gone and their final location never to be determined.

Eight were willingly thrown in the trash after lacrosse and cross country seasons were over. Workout clothes were easily disposable and it’s not like Stiles wore the shirts at times other than when he was running laps or attempting to play defense on the lacrosse team’s first line. Scott and Isaac complained one too many times that the smell of sweat soaked Stiles was pungent and the teen caved after a while and resigned to shower far more often than a person who didn't hang out with werewolves would.

The other eighteen were now scattered amongst the pack because apparently Stiles’ closet was like a thrift store: donate clothes and feel free to take some with you. It was something he and Scott had done comfortably for years, trading clothes their parents bought them that suited the other better, borrowing things and forgetting to return them. But after the fiasco of junior year, Derek and Scott finally, _finally_ , agreeing to trust each other and form one pack, the Stilinski household became one of four places the group was likely to be found.

Isaac had been the first after Derek and the incident with Danny that still made Stiles laugh (even if it ended with his head getting slammed into the steering wheel) Stiles had lent a shirt to other than Scott. The kid was still awkward around Stiles, unsure whether they could be friendly or not because Isaac had become Scott’s new bestie while the Alphas were in Beacon Hills. Stiles just pulled a shirt from his drawer, one with long sleeves because the beta had a nervous twitch of balling his sleeves in his hands, handed it to Isaac, and tossed the shredded shirt he took off in the trash. Stiles told him to keep it before saying he needed to leave out the window because the Sheriff would be home any minute and the last thing he needed was his father catching Isaac half wolfed out in his room. Isaac had nodded, smiled at Stiles the way he did at Scott, and it was the beginning of their friendship.

Erica has two of his shirts, one for no other reason than she looked better in it than he did. It was a navy v-neck Stiles had purchased after the Purge (Lydia-approved) taken weeks after Erica had returned from her self-imposed reprieve from the pack. Stiles had been doing homework, trying to catch her up on what she had missed the past four months of school while Erica was rifling through his drawers, later saying she kept smelling a scent that didn’t belong to him. When she found the shirt, she stripped in the middle of his room and asked if it looked good on her. Stiles had looked up to Erica flattening the shirt over her stomach, gaped for a few seconds, and nodded. She smiled, all teeth and kind brown eyes, said that she liked it because it made her boobs look great, and Stiles said she could have it.

Erica took another shirt, a soft jersey tee it had taken Stiles months to break in, because he accidentally bled on and through her favorite tank top. She punched him in the arm later for almost dying on her and he said she could take anything from his closet as compensation. She wears the shirt now on days she wants Stiles to do something for her and more often than not it’s enough for him to comply with her wishes.

After junior year calmed down and the Alphas left with four less members than they had arrived with, Allison eased back into normal teenage girl instead of skilled huntress. Stiles often found himself with Lydia instead of Scott for those following few months, doing homework or studying for the SATs. Allison came along every so often and one afternoon in January she took a long sleeve flannel Stiles hadn’t worn in a while and didn’t tell him until she showed up wearing it at school the next week. It bothered Scott that Allison smelled like somewhat of Stiles and made the two laugh until Scott stomped off to find Isaac.

Scott has four of his shirts and that’s par for the course when it comes to people you’ve been friends with a majority of your life. Two were borrowed and never returned, one stolen to cover the scent of werewolf from a curious group of shapeshifters that could change their appearance to whomever they wished, and the last Scott had given him for his nineteenth birthday. He had taken it back three hours later when his mother realized he had re-gifted it. Stiles had laughed until he was red because he had been present when his father and Melissa had asked if Scott would like the shirt in question.

Isaac has a lacrosse shirt he never returned, Boyd an old t-shirt that had always been too big on Stiles, Jackson a polo that Lydia bought him and Stiles was too nice to say he didn’t like it. Isaac has more shirts borrowed from Scott than Stiles does and as weird as that should be it isn’t. Boyd’s shoulders are too wide to fit into Stiles’ clothes and the shirt he has from the teen says Beacon Hills Sheriff’s Department on it because it used to be his father’s. Jackson deigned to take the polo after Stiles said ‘ _because Lydia_ ’ and that was enough of a reason.

Lydia has two of his shirts, one that she tailored into a dress and another she took one night the Alpha’s had been in town, chased her around the woods on foot, and reduced her cardigan to tatters. The dress shirt she took had been one Stiles had had for years, bought for him by his father when he started high school. The Sheriff had never been good at purchasing clothes for his son - that was something his wife had done for Stiles as he grew up. Lydia found it during the Purge, asked if she could have it, and shown up at the Stilinski’s front door a week later in the now shirtdress, leggings, boots, and belt. The Sheriff gave her an odd look, let her in, and Lydia wooed him with the finer details on how stitching was rather easy.

The Sheriff started buying her gifts every birthday and Christmas after that and makes sure Stiles invites her to all holiday get-togethers with the McCalls. She affectionately calls him John and Stiles rolls his eyes every time. Lydia just smiles and tosses her hair behind her shoulder.

Derek has four of Stiles' shirts, a jacket, a hoodie, and one pair of sweatpants. Ironically, all but one shirt were acquired prior to them every being in a relationship. Two were thrust in the alpha’s face towards the end of junior year because if they were going to be friends, Stiles demanded that Derek wear an actual shirt and not just a tank top if his father was in the house. Derek just shrugged, tugged them on and picked at them until they stretched out, never returning them. Stiles didn’t mind because the shirt Derek had borrowed the first time never fit the same.

A third had been given to Derek the night Kali shoved a pipe through the alpha’s chest and he’d bled until the slate grey shirt was burgundy. Scott had called him in a panic, saying Stiles needed to meet them at Deaton’s because everything was fucked and Stiles had rushed out of his room with his baseball bat in his hand. By the time Derek’s chest closed and the wound was nothing more than a pink mar on his otherwise perfect skin, Stiles couldn’t speak. He’d just handed Derek his emergency kit’s long sleeve thermal, said he was glad he wasn’t dead, and went home feeling awkward.

Derek hasn’t worn the shirt since. Stiles spotted it in the man’s closet once when he was looking for his own shirt to steal and Derek found him leaning against the door railing two hours later. He asked that he get rid of it because it reminded him of the Alphas, of Deucalion and Ennis and Aiden, of _Kali_ and how she almost killed him.

Derek doesn’t wear the shirt because it reminds Stiles of how he almost lost the most important person in his world before they were ever something more the circumstantial allies.

He does wear the fourth shirt, however, in spite of the fact Stiles asks him not to. It’s one of his old lacrosse shirts, the 24 bold on the back. Derek likes to remind Stiles he had been on the lacrosse team when he was in high school and it wouldn’t be weird if anyone outside the pack saw him wearing it in the public. The Sheriff doesn’t agree.

Isaac finds it hilarious because he has, on two occasions, milled around the loft in a similar shirt and laughed until his throat was hoarse because they matched.

For almost every shirt that had been lost in incidence of running with wolves, most have been replaced. Stiles got a job the summer between sophomore and junior year at the local library stacking books because he didn’t yet know about the alphas and used that money plus what he saved from his birthday to go shopping after the Purge. He found himself in Macy’s, arms full of clothes placed there by Lydia, and it was the first time he realized it was her way of mending their past excuse for friendship.

When Stiles finally told the Sheriff about the werewolves, his father got him a credit card in case there was ever a situation where Beacon Hills was no longer safe. Stiles only had to use it for that reason once, much to his father’s relief. Instead he used and continues to use the card to buy clothes every few months when his closet begins to look bare from shirts lost in battle or to the pack.

Erica fits him with henleys that shouldn’t look nearly as well as they do on a hanger. She also cajoles him into matching Batman shirts and it’s a nice reminder as to how far they have come as friends. She’s no longer the vengeful sixteen year old with wicked intent and Stiles likes to think Boyd has been responsible for at least some part of that.

Scott was the one who gave him his first red hoodie, meant to be ironic in every way. The thing lasted five months until Isaac accidentally came too close while Stiles was training with him and Scott and tore the hood off. Isaac is now responsible for replacing his signature clothing piece every time it becomes a casualty of being pack.

Stiles has four shirts that used to belong to Isaac because the beta has a horrible record of leaving his clothes everywhere. Two are screen printed cotton tees, things that hung off Isaac before the bite and Stiles uses on occasion to clean in. He has one of Isaac’s lacrosse jerseys as well. The last practice before their senior year’s lacrosse semi-finals, they wore each other's jerseys and made a bet with Scott and Boyd to see how long it would take Coach to notice. It wasn’t until the very end of practice that they both were pulled aside and reamed, but Coach put Stiles on first line that night and they won the game.

More of Stiles wardrobe is an amalgam of pieces that used to belong to members of the pack or were purchased by them than the Sheriff cares for. He understands they are basically one extended family, how it has become imperative to be so intertwined in one another's lives. It doesn’t mean he enjoys finding his son’s clothes left in the dryer when they are mixed with things that shout _Derek Hale_.

Stiles has seven shirts of Derek’s, only two of which he acquired before their mutual revelations of being each other’s missing puzzle piece. The first Derek gave to him the night the kanima had trapped them in the pool. Even though they had both been soaking wet, Derek had pulled it from the trunk of the Camaro and thrown it at Stiles only for him to cover it with his damp lacrosse jacket. The other Stiles acquired when a neighboring pack came to challenge Derek for Hale territory and Stiles smelling human was a liability. The same week, he borrowed shirts from every other member of the pack save Allison, Lydia, and Danny.

Sharing clothing has really just become a right of being pack. Danny is the only one who Stiles has never borrowed clothes from but they’re just as close as everyone else. To anyone outside the group, it would seem weird that they are so lax in personal boundaries. To them, it’s just another part of life.

\- - -

It should be no surprise then that half of what Stiles is wearing doesn’t belong to him.

He’s sitting on the couch in the Derek’s loft, legs pulled up on the cushion and crossed, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and covering his hair like a hood. The shirt is his, long sleeved and maroon, ends of the sleeves pulled to his forearms. The sweatpants are Derek’s but he’s pretty sure Erica is the one that talked him into buying them because they have writing on the hip and Derek doesn’t do brand promotion.

Except Ray-Bans. Derek has a thing for Ray-Bans. Stiles finds he has a thing for Ray-Bans too but that’s just a byproduct of alphas looking sinfully attractive in aviators.

Derek is in his room putting away warm laundry. Stiles had started it, thrown some of his own clothes in as well, and told the alpha he had to finish it because Stiles was not a housewife. The man rolled his eyes, started the dryer when needed, and thrown the blanket on top of the teen's head before climbing the spiral stairs with a basket full of clean clothes.

Derek hates the blanket. In the month and half Stiles has had it, he has tried to get rid of it twice. The fact that the alpha dislikes it as much as he does makes Stiles love it all the more.

It’s not his fault Erica was at the fabric store buying new knitting needles and happened upon the god awful printed fleece. The wolves on the fabric look comical in the way they are baring their teeth, the large panel bordered with something resembling sticks. Or deer antlers - he hasn’t figured that part out yet. When Erica had given it to him on his nineteenth birthday, Derek said there was no way in hell the thing was staying in his apartment. 

It hasn’t left since.

Derek comes down the stairs with a sigh, Stiles watching with his head tilted over the back of the couch. He grins and chuckles when Derek pulls the blanket over his eyes only to sit down next to him. He smells like Stiles’ favorite fabric softener and Stiles shucks the blanket to the side to crawl onto the man’s lap.

He’s wearing one of Stiles’ jackets, navy with white strings. The ends are worn from Stiles worrying them between his teeth for weeks while he applied for colleges. The Beacon Hills’ cross country emblem is emblazoned across the back, cracked from wear. 

Stiles presses his face to Derek’s neck, grinning as he inhales the scent of fabric softener. Derek makes a noise as he squirms but settles his hands on his hips, fingers rubbing mindless circles against the thin fabric of the shirt. Stiles leans forward until all of his weight is settled on Derek's thighs and slips his hands into the pockets of his old jacket.

It has taken them months, years really, to be as comfortable with this as they are. It’s as domestic as they’ll ever be, at least for the next few years because Stiles and the rest of the pack will be dispersing around the country for college at the end of the summer. Stanford is only a few hours drive from Beacon Hills but a stuffy dorm room is nothing compared to the sanctity of the place Derek actually calls _home_.

Stiles shivers when the alpha’s fingers slip beneath the hem of his shirt, hot and rough against his skin. Something about being werewolves keeps most of the pack's body temperatures higher than everyone else's and Derek is no exception: it’s warmer outside than normal but the loft is freezing. It’s the reason Stiles justifies keeping the blanket there. He also knows that even though Derek hates it, he doesn’t mind the fact it holds Stiles’ scent on the days he doesn’t come by.

Sharing clothes is just another form of scent marking when it comes to the wolves. It’s the reason Derek smiles differently when Stiles takes things from his closet, wears them until his scent fades. The entire pack is guilty of doing so with their significant others and unabashed when the other betas catch scents belonging to people not present. But it’s more than that and that’s what makes Stiles stomach drop and his heart race.

It comes down to possession, really. Of making it known to everyone that someone is spoken for. Derek likes when Stiles wears his clothes because everyone else can see that Stiles is his and Stiles feels the same when Derek wears something that used to belong to him. It’s a greedy flare that curls and licks at his insides, alters his scent to something that Derek can only describe as heady, makes him feel like he's sixteen again and Danny was staring at shirtless Derek as openly as Stiles had wanted to. 

Derek loves him. He has to with the amount of shit he lets Stiles get away with. No one else borrows Derek’s clothes, no one else has their own personalized ringtone. No one else can make the alpha laugh like he can.

“You okay?” Derek asks, wrapping his arms loosely around Stiles’ lower back.

“Yeah.” Stiles presses closer, trying to bury into the warmth radiating from Derek’s skin. “Just cold.”

“I think the sheets are still warm.”

“You’re just trying to get me into bed,” Stiles chides, grinning when Derek’s chest vibrates with a chuckle.

“If warm sheets was all it took to get you into bed, that would have happened a long time ago.”

“That thing you called a bed in the warehouse was not alluring.”

“Like you would have cared.”

“Oh my god, we are not having this conversation again.”

Derek laughs again, reaches for the blanket and wraps it around Stiles. Stiles lifts his head from the man’s neck and smiles when Derek pulls it over his shoulders. He scrunches his nose and rubs it against Derek's until the alpha gets the picture and kisses him. He hums into it, grips the pockets of his jacket between his fingers, and loses himself in the way Derek tastes and the press of fingers against his neck.

**Author's Note:**

> I actually started this this past weekend and wanted to get it done quickly because I'm working on the piece I owe someone for the AO3 auction. If things go as planned, I should have the first chapter of that fic posted sometime next week. Hopefully.
> 
> There's a sneak peak video floating around tumblr with a better view of Derek's loft but I'm not changing the way I described it in the above because I'm stubborn and the layout doesn't make sense to me. I'll get used to it eventually I guess.
> 
> Edit: the Teen Wolf tumblr posted a video about Derek's loft while I was editing this so just pretend that he redecorated or something.
> 
> The title of this is from the song "Good Days Bad Days" by Kaiser Chiefs.
> 
> Feel free to come say hello on my [tumblr](http://stayingputwouldbeablunder.tumblr.com)! I'm still looking for a beta if anyone is interested.


End file.
